


Change of Plan

by rsadelle



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 06:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3109940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zhenya narrows his eyes at Alex, but then he sighs and takes out his phone. He switches to English and tells Crosby, "Have friend for Thanksgiving, but friend burn turkey."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Change of Plan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ilovealistair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilovealistair/gifts).



> For ilovealistair who asked for "'I live next door and just burned my holiday turkey; I know you smell my failure. Do you happen to have a spot for me at your table?’ - Alex O/Sid - preferably with Alex burning the food." This is a non-AU version of that.

The turkey does not look good. No, the turkey looks _terrible_. By far the worst result of any of Alex's attempts at cooking.

Next to him, Zhenya swears.

"This was your idea," Alex reminds him. "I was happy to order pizza, but you're the one who wanted to make an American Thanksgiving dinner."

"Pizza places aren't open on Thanksgiving."

"You're Evgeni Malkin," Alex says, making his voice go awed over Zhenya's name. "Someone in Pittsburgh would have opened for you."

"And you're Alex Ovechkin," Zhenya says, sharp over Alex's name. "They would have closed when they saw you coming."

Alex barks out a laugh, and then returns to his solemn consideration of the ruined turkey. "We're not eating this." He takes the pan out of the oven and leaves it on the counter to cool off before they throw it out.

Zhenya looks unbearably sad; it gets to Alex even though he knows it has to be at least half faked to make him feel guilty.

"Grocery stores aren't open on Thanksgiving either," Alex says, apologetic.

Zhenya sighs heavily.

"There must be somewhere we can go," Alex says. "Someone on your team must be doing a team thing." He doesn't know for sure, but he got three invitations from guys on his team; surely Zhenya had offers for Thanksgiving dinner.

"Sid was going to have a few guys over," Zhenya says.

Alex beams at him. Crashing Crosby's Thanksgiving sounds even better than successfully making their own.

Zhenya narrows his eyes at Alex, but then he sighs and takes out his phone. He switches to English and tells Crosby, "Have friend for Thanksgiving, but friend burn turkey."

Alex watches Zhenya smile and say, "Thank you, Sid. We bring sides and pie."

Alex can hear Crosby protesting, something about too much pie, before Zhenya hangs up on him.

Between the two of them, they manage to bundle the sides and pie out to Zhenya's car in one trip, and then up to Crosby's porch in one trip.

Crosby smiles when he opens the door and greets Zhenya, and then his eyes narrow suspiciously. "Ovechkin."

"Hi, Sid," Alex says cheerfully. "Happy Thanksgiving."

"Neither of us actually celebrate American Thanksgiving," Crosby says. To Zhenya he says, "I wouldn't have invited you if I'd known who your 'friend' was."

Alex sets down his armful of containers in the kitchen and throws an arm around Crosby's shoulders. "Sid, you hurt my feelings." He smacks a kiss onto Crosby's temple. "Know you thankful I'm here."

"Not even a little bit," Crosby says, but he laughs a little when he pushes away from Alex. He offers them both beer or wine - Alex takes a beer; Zhenya tries the red wine Crosby is enthusiastic about - and takes them into the living room where there are a bunch of other hockey players spread out over couches and chairs.

"Guys, you know Ovechkin. This is Beau, Borts, Olli, Brandon, and Taylor and Connor."

Alex recognizes Crosby and Zhenya's teammates, and Crosby's sister. Connor is the only one he doesn't know. Zhenya's teammates greet him with varying levels of chirping about inviting himself over, and Taylor gets up to give him a hug.

"Littlest Crosby," Alex says, just to see her grin over at him. "It's been so long. Haven't seen you since Vegas." He waggles his eyebrows at her.

"Stop flirting with my sister," Crosby says.

Taylor is the one who laughs. "Chill out, Sidney." She gives Alex a brief hug and sits down again, snuggled up to Connor. She's a brave woman if she brought her boyfriend to visit with a bunch of hockey players. Unless he is a hockey player.

"Yes," Alex says, "chill out, Sidney."

Crosby sighs like he's annoyed, and then shakes his head at Alex, clearly more amused than anything else. "We're eating in ten minutes. Borts, get your feet off the coffee table."

"Aww, man," Borts says. "What else are coffee tables for?"

"Not that," Crosby admonishes. "Get up and come help me set the table."

"Just because I had my feet on your coffee table? That doesn't seem fair." Borts stands up despite his complaining. "Sunshine should have to help too."

Beau says, "Sucks to be you," which leads to a wrestling match that stops when Zhenya claps his hands and says, "Captain give you assignment. Go help."

"Can you teach my team that?" Alex asks when it works to get Beau and Borts following Crosby into the kitchen. "My team not listen to orders as well."

"Your team sucks," Zhenya says with a sly smile.

"You suck," Alex says, and he heads for the kitchen. "I can help," he tells Crosby.

"No," Crosby says. "You're a guest-"

"We're guests," Borts calls from the dining room, "and you're making us help."

"-and you burned a turkey," Crosby continues, ignoring Borts. "I don't trust you in my kitchen." There's an amused twitch to his mouth that takes the sting out of his words.

"Break my heart," Alex says. He leans on the counter and watches Crosby transfer things from pots and pans to serving dishes and leave them out for Borts and Beau to ferry to the table.

"Are you just going to stare at me?" Crosby asks.

Alex raises his eyebrows. "Something else you want me to do?" It has the desired effect of making Crosby blush.

"Usually," Crosby says, determined, "you never stop talking."

"Think it's a good thing turkey burned," Alex says. "Now I get to spend day with you." He smiles when Crosby shakes his head. "Good hands," he observes, "in kitchen as well as on ice."

"Oh, jeez," Crosby mutters. "I didn't even make most of this myself."

"But making it look pretty," Alex says. He adds a slight leer to it in case Crosby's missed his meaning.

"G," Crosby calls toward the other room, "why did you have to bring Ovechkin into my house?" His eyes are sparkling enough that Alex knows he's just teasing.

"Sanja," Zhenya says when he comes into the kitchen, "are you being mean to my captain?"

"No, no," Alex says with a grin. "I say only nice things. And I make myself useful." He steps forward and refills Crosby's wine glass from the bottle on the counter.

"Very useful," Crosby says dryly. He puts a last plate on the counter, and calls, "The food is ready," to the stragglers in the living room. He also opens another bottle of wine, so Alex continues to make himself useful and carries one of the bottles to the table.

"We have to go around the table and say what we're thankful for," Beau says once they're all seated.

"It's not even real Thanksgiving," Borts says. That leads to a short scuffle that resolves when Connor says, "I'd like us to say what we're thankful for."

It's relatively predictable, everyone thankful for the food and to be with friends, Connor and Taylor sappy about being thankful to be together, Zhenya slyly thankful for "Sid for saving me from burned dinner with Sanja."

"Yes," Alex says, "very thankful to have dinner with Sid, and to see Littlest Crosby again."

Alex kills two beers, tries a glass of the wine Crosby is so enamored of, eats two plates piled with food, and laughs so much it might count as a core workout.

Crosby is easy to rile up, at least for Alex, Beau and Borts are a comedy show all on their own, and they all laugh when Taylor's answer to Beau asking her, "Is it weird to be the only girl here?" is a calm, "Probably weirder for Connor to be the only one who doesn't play hockey."

They all help carry plates and serving dishes into the kitchen, where Crosby is overly strict about how leftovers are put into containers and how containers are put into the fridge, to the point that he hipchecks Alex away from it and rearranges the containers Alex just put in there.

"Is he like this as Captain?" Alex asks the rest of them.

"Yes," Zhenya says.

Alex pulls an exaggerated sympathetic face. "Sucks to be Penguin."

He gets shoved by Zhenya, with a cheering chorus from the rest of Zhenya's teammates. "Sid best captain," Zhenya says. "Even when picky."

The smug look Crosby turns on Alex is completely uncalled for.

"We should go skating," Olli says.

"Before we get any drunker," Brandon adds.

That garners a laugh, and when Crosby's finished rearranging his refrigerator to whatever exacting specifications he has, they troop down to the basement where Crosby has enough spare pairs of skates in various sizes that they can all get onto his rink.

"No hitting," Crosby says. "And if you're too drunk to skate you have to get off the ice. I don't want anyone going on IR because of this." He eyes Alex. "Except maybe you."

Alex joins in when everyone else laughs, and claims one of the sticks leaning up against the wall. He grabs a puck too, and slides out onto the ice with it. He doesn't have it for very long before Crosby poke checks it away from him, plays it off the boards, and heads for the other end of the rink.

Alex chases after him, and they play a game of keep-away all across the rink, weaving around Sid's teammates playing their own games and Taylor patiently guiding Connor in slow circles around the rink.

"Sid," Brandon eventually yells, "can we eat pie now?"

Crosby looks up at the clock he has hanging on the wall - Alex uses his distraction to his advantage and steals the puck from him - and says, "Yes, if everyone wants to."

There's a chorus of agreement, so they head for the edge of the rink.

Crosby steals the puck back from Alex along the way and flips it up into his hand as he leaves the rink.

Alex is almost too delighted by the smug satisfaction on Crosby's face to be upset about losing.

They troop upstairs and eat pie with whipped cream around the table. Crosby brings out water and pours glasses of wine for anyone who wants them.

"We always watched _It's A Wonderful Life_ on Thanksgiving when I was growing up," Connor contributes to the conversation about holiday traditions.

"We could do that," Taylor says. "I'm sure it's on somewhere, or we can watch it on Netflix."

They finish their pie first, Crosby offers coffee, hot chocolate, tea, and more wine, and they take their varying drinks into the living room.

Crosby sits down in a chair that's large enough for two people, if those two people are small or particularly close. Neither Alex nor Crosby are small, but Alex plops himself down in it with Crosby anyway.

"What are you doing?" Crosby asks.

"Sitting." Alex wiggles a little to make himself more comfortable.

"This chair is not big enough for two." Crosby pushes at Alex.

"Big enough," Alex says. "Even for your ass." He grins at the ripple of laughter in the room. "Just have to get comfortable."

Alex wouldn't be able to move Crosby if he didn't want to be moved, but Crosby's had at least a bottle of the wine he likes, and there's a smile hovering around his mouth even as he grouches at Alex, so Alex tugs at him until they're more comfortably situated. He ends up with one of Crosby's legs hooked over his lap and the two of them pressed close together.

"See?" Alex says. "Comfortable."

Crosby grumbles, "For you," but he doesn't move other than to pick up his wine glass from the end table next to them.

"If you're comfortable now," Taylor says with a smirk hovering somewhere around her lips, "can we watch the movie?"

If anything, they get more comfortable as the movie plays. Alex stretches his arm out around Crosby's shoulders, and when that doesn't get any more of a reaction than a slightly suspicious look, he rests his other hand on Crosby's knee. The one draped over him.

In the privacy of his own head, Alex can admit that the chair is maybe a little small for the two of them, but he's comfortable like this, sleepy and warm with Sid half in his lap.

He's half asleep, so he misses Zhenya getting up from the couch, but he does catch him saying, "Sid," from behind them, with enough of a mischievous tone that Alex refuses to look up. Sid, of course, doesn't, and Alex continues to refuse to look up even in the face of his groan.

"What are you doing?" Sid asks.

"Is tradition," Zhenya says, with such completely faked innocence that even Sid has to know he's putting on a show.

The laughter from the rest of the room drowning out the sound of the movie still playing is enough to get Alex to look up. Zhenya is holding a sprig of greenery tied with a ribbon over Alex's head. Alex has been in the US for enough years to recognize mistletoe and its tradition.

"No way," Sid says.

"Tradition," Zhenya insists. "Sanja under the mistletoe. Must kiss him."

"He just has to get kissed," Sid insists. "It doesn't have to be me."

Alex puts on a mournful look. "Not want to kiss me? Make me so sad, Sid."

That causes more laughter from the rest of the room, and a few catcalls.

"Tradition," Brandon says. "You have to kiss him."

Sid says, "Traitor," and then, when that doesn't stop anyone, leans over and presses a barely-there kiss to Alex's cheek.

"That's not a kiss," Borts says.

"Yeah, come on, Sid," Beau chimes in, "give him a real kiss."

It's funny for the way it makes Sid turn a glare on them.

"You know they won't give up," Taylor says, a sparkle of mischief in her look.

"No." Sid turns a look on Alex.

Alex meets it with raised eyebrows. "They're right," he says. "Not much of a kiss." He smirks at Sid. "Guess you not good at everything."

Sid turns to look at the rest of the room. "No pictures," he says firmly, "and no tweeting." Then he turns back and kisses Alex.

Sid's lips are as soft as they look, like they were the last time Alex kissed him. This is significantly, and disappointingly, more chaste, just the press of Sid's lips against his for long enough that it will count as a real kiss. Nothing like the slick, dirty slide of their mouths together in a hotel room when they were drunk and desperate. Just once, years ago, but it's a fond memory for Alex, and Sid kissing him brings it back.

"Are you happy now?" Sid has his head tipped back and is asking the question of Zhenya.

"Yes," Zhenya says. He bends down and smacks a kiss onto the top of Sid's head, then the top of Alex's. "Shh. Watch movie now."

"You're the one who interrupted!" Sid protests.

Zhenya flashes them both a grin and takes his spot on the couch.

Alex is fully awake now, and desperately conscious of every place he and Sid are touching. He waits until everyone is paying full attention to the movie again before he slides his arm down from around Sid's shoulders to his waist.

Sid sighs, but he just tips back the last of his wine, puts his glass down, and leans into Alex's side.

Sid's teammates start making noises about leaving when the movie's over. That leads to everyone gathering around the kitchen for a snack first, and then Sid's teammates filtering out until it's just Alex and Zhenya left in the kitchen while Sid gathers up the dishes they brought.

"It was nice to meet you," Connor says when they say goodbye.

"Yes," Zhenya says. "Very nice." He puts on a threatening look that would look more threatening on someone generally more threatening than Zhenya. "Be nice to Taylor too."

" _Geno_ ," Taylor complains.

Connor just laughs. "Of course I will."

Taylor hugs them both, Zhenya longer than Alex, and Sid walks them to the door.

"Thank you for Thanksgiving," Zhenya says in the entryway. He hugs Sid, and Alex doesn't consciously notice him pushing Sid a little when they let go until Zhenya looks up with the curl of a smirk and says, "Oh, look. Tradition." The smirk grows wider when he pushes Alex toward Sid.

"When did you even have time to hang that?" Sid asks.

Alex follows his gaze up to the mistletoe hanging squarely above Sid's head.

"Not me," Zhenya says innocently. To Alex he says, "You kiss Sid. I warm up car," and leaves the house.

"You don't have to kiss me," Sid says.

Alex shrugs. "It's tradition."

"It's not even your tradition," Sid says. "I know because I-"

Alex cuts him off by kissing him. It's not the kind of dirty kiss he remembers them being capable of, but it's deeper than the chaste thing from before. "Next time I'm here," he promises, "we go out. I buy you dinner."

"You come here to visit Geno," Sid says.

Alex shrugs. "Can see Zhenya in summer. Next time, just you and me." They're still under the mistletoe, which provides him with ample reason to kiss Sid again. "Dinner," he says. "You dessert."

Alex is halfway out the door before Sid manages to gather himself together and ask, "Does that mean I'm in charge of dessert or that I am dessert?"

Alex just smirks at him and pulls the door closed behind him. His failure with the turkey now seems like the best thing that could have happened today.


End file.
